


Comfort

by GleefulMayhem



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-07
Updated: 2012-03-07
Packaged: 2017-11-01 14:25:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/357834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GleefulMayhem/pseuds/GleefulMayhem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Defining comfort is not so concrete when you're John Watson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comfort

Comfort was not always a warm blanket on a cold night.  Nor was it necessarily a book and tea as your flatmate lays on you and looks up a criminal's shoes on your laptop.

It wasn't always sleeping on the sofa with said flatmate after a particularly tiring case and realising that their presence has kept the nightmares at bay, if only for a night.

Comfort certainly wasn't seeing that person, the one who had made you feel more alive than ever before in your life, jump off a building.  It wasn't the watery smiles and pitying hugs at the funeral, either.

It couldn't be the feeling of hope trickling away as the years tick by.  Of sorrow replacing his very will to live.  None of this could be.

But comfort didn't always have to be warm and happy, as it was for most.  John didn't seem to fit under "most people" ever since he moved in with Sherlock, anyhow.

It was cold and night, now, the only light a flickering streetlamp in the shady alleyway.  The sky chooses then to open up and offer him rain.  A stray cat knocks over a trash bin and a siren cries out in the distance.

John should be afraid.  He was sent anonymously by cab.  Not Mycroft then, he would've sent a black government car.  And it would have been on time.

The streetlight finally gave out and he couldn't hear anything over the pouring rain.  But he could smell, over the trash and wet pavement, the scent of musk and of slight body odour.  Sherlock.

Lightening strikes and illuminates the alley for a fraction of a second.  Sherlock is leaning his back against the wall across from John, hands under his chin and eyes closed.

He steps forward, knowing John had seen him, and wills his hand to touch John's.  He can't, not when he hasn't seen John's reaction, not when he doesn't know if his touch would be welcomed.

John's knees nearly buckle with relief, pain, joy, anger.  He closes the gap, falling into Sherlock's arms, and simply sobbing into his neck.  Sherlock feels the warm tears and understands.

"I'm so sorry, John."

They're cold and wet and it's been three years since either of them has understood the meaning of happiness.  But it doesn't matter; they have found each other once again and, in that, true comfort.


End file.
